Our View: Time for a heroin intervention

Monday

Feb 10, 2014 at 6:30 PMFeb 10, 2014 at 6:34 PM

Like much of the nation, in communities large and small, Bristol County's heroin problem has been growing in recent years. In Fall River, Taunton and other area communities, overdoses and overdose deaths have been increasing over the past decade, with an especially troubling spike in recent weeks.

Editorial Board

Like much of the nation, in communities large and small, Bristol County's heroin problem has been growing in recent years. In Fall River, Taunton and other area communities, overdoses and overdose deaths have been increasing over the past decade, with an especially troubling spike in recent weeks.

An exclamation point on the severity of the problem came with the Feb. 2 overdose death of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, which has renewed the nationwide focus on the problem that health officials and law enforcement were warning of long before. In Massachusetts, 642 people died of heroin and opioid-related deaths in 2011. It was the highest number in more than a decade, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Massachusetts State Police and local police are working together to try to get a handle on what is causing the spike in fatal drug overdoses, be it a more pure and potent form of heroin, batches of the drug blended with other drugs or cutting agents or addicts combining heroin with other narcotics.

On a typical week in Fall River, paramedics and EMTs respond to about 15 to 20 drug overdoses a week. A "bad batch" of heroin, which typically comes through twice a year, may kill up to a dozen addicts. Although Fall River seems to have somehow been spared so far from the latest lethal batch of heroin mixed with the powerful prescription drug Fentanyl that had been detected in Attleboro and Taunton, as well as Salisbury and Lawrence, health officials know it's only a matter of time before the poison infiltrates the entire area.

Taunton police, meanwhile, have seen a huge spike in overdoses, including another fatality and about 10 ODs over the weekend. Taunton officers responded to at least 20 overdoses in January, an unusually high number for the Silver City. Meanwhile, 43 patients were brought to the emergency room at Taunton's Morton Hospital for drug overdoses in January.

The Taunton Police Department used its page on the social media site Facebook to warn heroin users and their families about the recent overdose epidemic in an attempt to save lives. "If you or someone you know has a heroin addiction problem, seek help immediately," the message said. "If you are using heroin, do not do it unmonitored. Our fatalities involved individuals who were alone with no one present to call for medical attention." As of late Monday morning, 1,609 people had shared the warning with their Facebook friends, with 250 people commenting on it. Police and health officials would do well to continue to utilize social media to get the message out quickly.

This is a nationwide epidemic that is claiming too many lives. Even for the heroin user who may not take a fatal dose of the drug, life as they once knew it — for themselves, their friends and family — may be very different than it once was. It is time to honestly discuss and address this epidemic on a local, state and national level before the tsunami of destruction continues in its wake.

To fix the problem, heroin addiction must be treated as the public health emergency it is. While families must help intervene to save their loved ones from this scourge, there must also be available and effective treatment services at the community level for them to turn to.